Identifying Shared Opioid Supplies from Public Data on Opioid Deaths (Preprint)

Author:

Imhof PeterORCID

Abstract

UNSTRUCTURED

Opioid-related, accidental death counts have increased in North America over the past decade, leading to the notion of an ‘opioid crisis’. In recent years, the majority of deaths involving opioids were due to illicit fentanyl, connecting deaths more strongly with illicit activities. This study presents a straightforward approach to determine if two locations shared the same opioid supply during a specific period of time. It is based on the assumption that synchronized death counts in two locations over a specific period of time highlight locations that shared opioid supplies. Data on accidental opioid deaths is publicly available in many health jurisdictions. The proposed analysis operates on data from pairs of locations of interest and involves calculating the Pearson correlation coefficients and the related p-values to check for statistical significance. Statistically significant coefficients higher than 0.5 identify locations as sharing access to the same opioid supply. As an example, data from the “Alberta substance use surveillance system” for the time from January 2019 until June 2022 is analyzed to identify connected opioid supplies in seven cities in Alberta, Canada. The limitations of this approach are discussed. This study describes how to provide information about shared supplies of illicit opioids to support health and social service providers, municipal administrators, or law enforcement agencies to respond to the public health concerns related to the opioid crisis.

Publisher

JMIR Publications Inc.

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